


Say you'll see me again

by dinahlaurel



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 04:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9107626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinahlaurel/pseuds/dinahlaurel
Summary: written pre-5x10, loosely based off of some spoilers





	1. Chapter 1

She comes back to him in his dreams— every night, without question, since the Dominators invaded. Sometimes he thinks it’s been happening for longer than that, too, that he’d just been burying those dreams in his subconscious, pushing them away not to deal with them. It’s easier that way anyway. Kind of a tradition of sorts, really, and one of the many long lasting effects of that boat accident that changed his life forever many years ago now.

Always alive, always smiling. Always so unbelievably bright. That beam of light she’d always been in his life. “Ollie, come on,” she giggles, eyes closed as she tries to push him away, bodies tangled in each other in bed wrapped in fresh cotton sheets, his arms tight around her body as his lips enthusiastically travel up and down her neck, “I can’t be late to work again, Joanna is going to kill me.”

“You don’t need to work anymore,” he frowns, stubbornly, “you married a billionaire, remember?”

“That's not the point!”

“I know, I know—” Oliver sighs, pulling away with a final kiss to her lips, “Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world.”

And just like that, she vanishes. Disappearing as his eyes open, sweat dripping down his face. It’s just a dream, again.

Until one day… she isn’t.

It all happens too fast, one second he’s coming back to the lair wondering if he’ll even be able to sleep again after what happened, to see her again and find some kind of comfort at least for a few hours, and then, there she is. Standing right in front of the suits. Alive, smiling. Just like in his dreams. “Hi Ollie,” she whispers, and a better man would've known, a better man would've been able to pinpoint every detail. But he’s never been one of those. He doesn’t think things through, he jumps. Just like Laurel would always say. He’s too confused, too happy.

And it takes him some time, he doesn’t want to accept it, but she makes it hard to pretend. She tells him her story, helps them against Prometheus, then turns on them last minute, getting herself trapped by ARGUS and escaping. Her fighting style is different, she’s different. Colder, harsher, ruthless. But he knows there’s something there, something he can’t quite put his finger on. She’s not Laurel Lance, not his Laurel anyway, and while it breaks his heart in a million pieces— he can’t help but think there’s got to be a catch. She may not be a dream, she may not be the woman he loved, the woman he was married to every night. But she was still Laurel, right? A Laurel that had lost a version of him, too. As weird as that was to think of. She's not a dream, but she's a chance. 

“We can help you,” he insists, a nod as he tries to muster all of his strength not to reach over, grab her hand. He can’t, he knows that, but it’s just so damn hard. “Laurel… my Laurel, she believed in second chances, she would’ve wanted us to help you start over.”

She doesn’t answer, practically freezes for a moment seeing him again, her eyes big and confused. waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to attack. “I can’t,” Black Siren shakes her head, rolling her eyes and swallowing hard. She might not be the woman he knew, but he can read her still. She’s scared, she’s trying not to cry, to be strong because she has to. “He’ll kill me, you don’t understand, you could never…”

“I’ll stop him,” oliver interrupts her, shifting close just enough to wrap his hand around hers. To hell with strength, Laurel Lance needs him and he’s failed her enough, “I promise to you, I’ll stop Prometheus. And then i’ll find you, wherever you are, you can start over. We... we can start over.” Together, but he doesn't say that. He knows better now not to assume things, no matter how much he wants it.

Her eyes close, a chuckle escaping her lips as she shakes her head. “You just have to be stubborn like this, don’t you? In every earth, every time—” she looks up, angry. As if she knows something he doesn’t. As if she can tell he’ll let her down. “We’ll see.” And with that she lets go of his hand, pausing for a second before she brushes her hand against his cheek, “Goodbye Ollie.”


	2. Chapter 2

He comes back to her in her dreams— every night, without question, since that awful shipwreck. It’s been years now, far too many to pretend it’s normal. But is there anything about her that is anymore? Her life turned upside down that day, even moreso a year later when the particle accelerator in Central City exploded. Widow turned metahuman, turned killer. Supervillain. Who would’ve known? If only Ollie had been around, if only her parents hadn’t died, if only her sister hadn’t turned her back on her after her first kill, running away angry and terrified. 

Even now, sleeping in a small boxed prison in another earth, driving herself mad every night, she still dreams of him. And none of it makes sense, not most of the times at least. Sometimes he’s mad at her, angry for leaving him alone in that boat, sometimes he’s smiling, reminding her of her last bit of conscience, she thinks, reminding her that she’s not a monster. Not the way zoom wanted her to be. Sometimes he just stands there, staring. And she wakes up screaming, wanting to crush those walls down in a loud cry just so she can escape and reach over to him one last time. 

Until one night, she doesn’t have to.

It happens too fast, one second she’s waking up to the loud STAR Labs alarms and rumbles from other metahumans on their cells, a dark figure standing outside hers, opening the doors and making a deal with her: destroy oliver queen, hit him where it hurts the most. Laurel Lance. She agrees quickly, too scared and confused to even think about it. The feeling that something is about to go completely wrong tying a knot in the back of her throat as she nods. And it’s not until she gets closer that she realizes. “Ollie?” her mouth drops open, an inaudible gasp escaping, a familiar feeling she couldn’t recognize finally putting the pieces together, “but you… you died, this can’t be happening.”

“Oliver Queen is dead,” he tells her, voice low and cold, hand reaching up before she can take off his mask, squeezing her wrist. “It’s Prometheus now— you’ll do as I say, or else I’ll have to get rid of you too as I did everyone else.” His grasp is tighter now, making her wince in pain. And nothing makes sense again, just like in her dreams. She’d recognize her husband anywhere, mask over his face or not, but she can’t recognize this. Threatening, demanding, hurting her. He would never do something like this. But there’s clearly so much more behind that mask, behind all those years apart, so much she doesn’t know. That she might probably never know.

So she complies. Too scared to challenge him, too afraid to hurt him if she fights back, too lost drowning herself in all the feelings she thought she’d buried years ago, along with the man she loved. She pretends to be this earth’s Laurel, watches with an ache in her chest as Oliver Queen smiles and believes her without a second thought, giving her the same look her Ollie would give her before he died, when they were just teenagers in love, too stupid to think of anything else but each other. She even tries to help him too, only to recognize Prometheus’ presence last minute and put on her coldest facade— one that she’s used of wearing by now. Fighting, screaming, even mocking her own doppelganger. That one’s easy, that one gets people in this earth every time. That one proves Prometheus that she’s on his side, still. Even after running away once she gets captured, and it’s enough to keep herself safe. To survive.

“We can help you,” the Oliver Queen of this earth insists, and she wants to laugh right into his face. He doesn’t understand a damn thing, he doesn’t stand a chance against Prometheus. He can’t fight a man who’s so much and so little like himself, a man that has been studying his every move for way too long. His mirror image. Dark and terrifying, empty. As if his soul has been drained away from him somehow, someway. “He’ll kill me,” she tells him, pushing back the tears— death by her lost lover’s hands, there really was nothing normal in her life anymore.

“I’ll stop him,” he says, grabbing her hand, and even though she wants to push him away, scream until he’s on the other side of the room, she doesn’t. Instead she stays still, wondering if all the people she’s killed in the past years made her deserve this. The man she loved wanting to kill her, the man she’s supposed to destroy making her feel like she could fall in love all over again, reminding her so much of her husband, singing promises she knows he won’t be able to keep. Promises she wants to believe. Everything was upside down, it has been that way for ages now. “You just have to be stubborn like this, don’t you? in every earth, in every world…”

Just like her Ollie, or at least the man she remembered him to be. The man who visited her in her dreams every night for years. Maybe things will be different this time, maybe he’ll survive and defeat death, maybe he doesn’t have to leave her. Maybe neither of them do, but she’s been through too much, she’s done too many to deserve a happy ending. Or even the slight chance of one. So instead she just moves away, taking a step back and frowning. “We’ll see,” she whispers, forcing herself to believe that there’s still hope. That maybe if this earth’s Oliver Queen believes so much in her, it has to be for something. And taking a step closer again, she brushes her hand against his cheek after a pause, “Goodbye Ollie,” she mumbles, not only for him but for her husband too. He’s long gone, she’ll lose him either way.


End file.
